


Expect Resistance

by takearisk



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Bloodlines, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Here goes, Leia POV, Listen Leia is my absolute favorite character of ALL TIME, Post Bloodlines, Retelling of the Sequel Trilogy from Leia's POV, and i missed her so, do not be fooled this is a reylo fic, pre tfa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-06-26 14:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19770532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takearisk/pseuds/takearisk
Summary: Sometimes, late at night - in between strategy sessions and debriefings, in the brief pauses between the assaults and the violence - Leia would allow herself to grieve. To reflect on those moments in her life where she failed as a leader, as a politician, as a wife.As a mother.Those were the hard nights. When she’d lay alone in her sleeper and think back on how many times she’d failed her son. All of the ways she could have done things differently. All of the choices she'd made that resulted in her family crumbling from within.This was one of those nights.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

**28 ABY**

Autumn on Hosnian Prime always was a sight to behold. The crisp feel in the air, the hanging gardens soaking up the recent rain shower, the late afternoon sun reflecting off the gleaming buildings. Its unassuming beauty was a cruel juxtaposition against the current state of the galaxy, and the government that the planet played host to. 

Leia couldn’t know, walking home that evening, that this would be the last time she would speak to her son for almost eight years. She couldn’t know that within weeks, the First Order would be making its first grab for power in the Outer Rim. She couldn’t know that within a year, the centrists among the galactic senate would be puppets of the empire reborn. 

No. 

All she knew, was that it’d been a month since the galaxy learned of her true parentage. One month since she’d stood before billions and pronounced that the accusations were true. Anakin Skywalker had indeed become Darth Vader, and the man who was responsible for the destruction of her home planet had been her birth father. 

One month. 

It felt like a decade. 

The long days eavesdropping and hard nights strategic planning would be one thing, but even after sending multiple holos a week since the incident, she had yet to hear from Ben. Leia knew her messages had been received. Even knew they’d been played back, but no response had come from Yavin 4.

So this morning, after waking up to yet another empty inbox, Leia had furiously punched out a brief, yet demanding, com-message stating that she will be in front of her desk at 2130 galactic standard time. And if her son knew what was good for him, he would be on the other end of that call. 

Leia stopped outside her door and swiped her key card. She could finally relax, she was home.

“Good evening, Princess!” Threepio called, shuffling around the corner. 

“No work tonight,” She shooed away the data pad the protocol droid was holding and hurried down the hall toward her private office. “Tell them any urgent business is going to have to wait until tomorrow-”

“Tell who, Highness?”

Leia smirked over her shoulder. “All of them.”

Casting off her cloak, she sat down behind her desk and pulled the projection device toward her. She was six minutes early but Leia didn’t care. She punched in the code to Luke’s private link and waited. It beeped for several long moments, long enough that she considered ending the connection and trying again, but just as she reached for the call switch, blue static blinked to life in front of her. 

“Luke-” Leia said through a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him until his face took shape in front of her.

Her brother's eyes crinkled around the edges. "It's good to see you.."

Leia scrutinized his face. He still had the beard, neatly trimmed and graying just a bit along his jaw. His hair was the same as it always was, medium length and a little shaggy, despite Leia's many attempts to get him to try a more fashionable cut. Luke was stubborn like that, set in his ways. She felt a smile grow slowly on her lips, they were similar in that way. 

"We received your data transmission last week-" Luke prompted, interrupting her reflection. "Ben was able to trace its origins the unknown regions."

 _Ben._ “How is he?”

“He’s..” Luke trailed off, his expression turning tense. “He’s been quiet.”

“In what way?” Leia asked, privately dreading his answer. Ben always was a quiet child, always observing, always studying the people around him, but he would often retreat into solitude when he felt particularly overwhelmed.

Luke scratched at his chin, lost in thought. “I think he feels betrayed.”

“By me?” Leia barely choked out the words, the guilt like a punch to the gut. 

“By all of us.”

She nodded once, the pressure in her throat making it difficult to speak. Leia had dreaded this since the day Ben’s affinity with the force had begun to show itself. She’d known that she couldn’t keep this from him. She’d known that being the grandson of Anakin Skywalker also meant being the grandson of Darth Vader. 

But it had never seemed like the right time to tell him. When he was a boy, Leia just wanted her son to be a child for a little while longer. But then her child turned into a grumpy teenager, and if possible, his moods had turned even darker. The last thing Leia wanted, was to add to the detachment and isolation he already felt around his peers. 

So they decided he would live with Luke, train to be a Jedi. Learn to balance and control his abilities. 

But then months turned into years and as their visits became more and more limited, Leia never wanted to spoil the small amount of time they had together, especially disclosing the details of their tarnished family tree. 

Which had led them here, to Ben finding out her deepest, darkest, most shameful secret in the worst possible way. 

“Leia,” Luke began. “There’s something else-”

But what he was going to say, Leia would never know. Luke’s mouth snapped shut, his expression turning passively neutral as his eyes settled on something in the middle distance. 

“I’ll give you two the room,” Luke murmured, giving Leia one last reassuring nod before moving out of view.

Ben took his place. 

A few long moments passed, Leia searching the holo for any indication of love or forgiveness. Ben had heavy shadows under his eyes and his mouth was set in a hard line. He usually looked so much like Han. The son she remembered had eyes that sparkled with a witty intelligence and a crooked smile that he reserved only for her. 

Now he looked tired. He looked burdened. He looked older than his 23 years. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was low and clear, asking the one question that she didn’t quite know how to answer. 

Leia fumbled with her words for a moment. Why hadn’t she told him? To protect him? To protect herself? To put off the realization that her son was predisposed to the dark side because of sheer genetics?

“We were going to-”

“When?” Ben asked, his voice taking on a hard edge. 

Leia eyed her son for a moment before deciding on honesty, “I don’t know.” 

“You should’ve told me,” Ben swallowed and looked down at his hands, his eyebrows knitted together betrayed how much emotion he was truly feeling. 

“My parents,” Leia deflected, her voice coming out stronger than she would have thought. “Were Bail and Breha Organa. They raised me, they taught me right from wrong, they loved me as if I was their own-”

“But-”

“But nothing,” Leia interjected and she could see Ben struggling to hold his tongue. “Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, whatever you’d like to call him.. He wasn’t my father. He killed my father when he destroyed my home planet and made me watch.”

They lapsed back into silence, Ben’s eyes sharp and his jaw set. 

Leia let out a deep breath, “Has anyone been giving you trouble about it?”

His expression changed from incredulity to dark humor, and Leia felt a wave of uneasiness wash over her. She was suddenly glad that they weren’t having this conversation face to face. Ben would no doubt be able to sense her warring emotions of stubbornness and fear. 

“Ben-” Leia chided, her voice taking on the same tone as when she used to catch him taking his calligraphy set to the walls. 

“Don’t worry,” He assured. “I can take care of myself-”

“I don’t want you to be goaded-”

“Has anyone been giving _you_ trouble about it?” Ben interjected, speaking over her reprimand. 

“Of course they have,” Leia conceded, thinking back over the last month and the constant battle of maintaining her integrity in the face of so much hostility. “But I can also take care of myself.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, an echo of a smirk, and Leia returned it with a sly smile of her own.

A beat of silence and then, “Where’s Han?”

“Your _father_ ,” Leia corrected. “Is back on Theron. He got me out of a tight spot a few weeks back, but for him, a few days on Hosnian is a few too many. You know how it is.”

Ben’s face was a careful mask of indifference but Leia knew better. 

“I’m sure he would visit you, if you’d just ask.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded like a scoff, and Leia resisted the very visceral urge to roll her eyes. They were so similar, her husband and her son. Too similar, it would seem.

She had just opened her mouth to say as much when Threepio came lumbering around the corner, sounding distressed.

“-I will convene with her directly,” the droid responded down the hallway and Leia eyed him with as much disdain over her son’s holo as she could muster. 

“I said no business tonight Threepio,” pointing an accusatory finger at the gold robot. 

“I am terribly sorry Princess,” He sputtered. Leia always wondered how it was possible that a machine could sputter. “But Greer has arrived and insists that her information is of the utmost importance.”

Leia gave him an unenthusiastic exhale as her only response, then turned her attention back to her son. “I’m sorry sweetheart, I have to go-”

“It’s okay.” He replied almost too quickly. 

Leia’s heart ached, it seemed that no matter what she did, there was never enough time for her to be both mother and revolutionary.

“Call me soon, okay?” Leia prodded hopefully. “I love you.”

“I know.” Ben nodded, but his smile was just a little too forced. 

* * *

She would get the news eleven days later. 

Awoken by Threepio, in the dead of night, and informed that the Jedi temple on Yavin 4 had been destroyed. 

The next seventeen hours were a blur. 

Joph and Greer had come immediately after hearing the news themselves, speaking in hushed whispers whenever they thought Leia wasn’t paying attention. 

Han followed soon after, pulling her to his chest and murmuring over and over “We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, we don’t know what happened…”

Leia nodded and buried her face in his old leather jacket, but she knew.

Something inside her felt off. Felt wrong. 

It felt like there was a gaping black hole in her chest where Ben’s light used to reside. 

Seventeen hours and twenty six minutes after she’d received the news, Luke finally comm’d.

“What. Happened.” Han demanded without preamble.

Luke’s face crumpled in grief and Leia felt her knees go weak, Han’s arm around her shoulders were the only thing keeping her upright.

“He’s-“ Luke choked and ran a rough hand over his eyes. “I went to confront him… and he turned on me.”

“Confront him about what?” Han asked, his voice hard.

Luke’s gaze met Han’s and then moved to Leia. “There was darkness.”

Leia felt the full weight of his statement and this time when her legs failed her, she didn’t try to keep herself standing. She collapsed into a nearby chair and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes.

“Someone, or something, was fixated on him-“ Luke rasped. “They turned him and I.. I couldn’t-“

Luke shook his head and several holographic tears fell down his blue tinted cheeks.

“Where’s Ben now?” Han asked, jumping at the first opportunity to take action. She usually loved that about her husband, don’t stop, don’t feel, make a plan and see it through.

But now…

“He’s gone,” Luke answered, anguish in his voice. “Took six others with him and killed the rest-“

Leia couldn’t breathe. Their son, their boy, their only child-

“We’ll find him-“ Han said quickly turning to Leia and kneeling in front of her chair. “Between the three of us, we’ve got more eyes in the galaxy than most. He’ll turn up. We’ll bring him back-“

Han’s hands rested on her knees and Leia laced her fingers with his. Sorrow burned its way through her blood as she met his eyes.

It wasn’t going to be that simple. She knew it in her bones.

Han took her silence as agreement and called back over his shoulder, “Luke, can you meet us on Kuat? That’s as good a place to start as any.”

Luke stared back solemnly, his face slightly distorted as they were sitting off center. 

“I’m not going with you,” He said quietly. 

Han jumped to his feet indignantly, but Leia just felt the fate of her son slam into place.

“Like hell you aren’t,” Han bellowed, towering over the projection of his brother in law and lifelong friend. “You’re going to-“

“I’d only make things worse,” Luke interrupted, the resignation in his soft voice somehow more miserable than if he’d yelled back.

“I failed him,” He continued, his expression riddled with guilt and sorrow. “I failed all of you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**34 ABY**

_Not this._

_Anything but this._

The monitors showing what was left of the fleet continued to blink in front of her. The control room was a mess of activity, officers shouting metrics and coordinates back and forth as the pilots across the galaxy fought for their lives. 

However, all that was forgotten as horrid, languishing defeat erupted through Leia’s chest. Her son burned inside her head. It had been so long since she’d felt him, felt anything that even resembled the boy she’d raised. He had been removed from her senses, locked away so tight that all she could feel was emptiness. 

Not anymore. 

All she felt was pain. 

So much pain. 

Leia sat heavily on a crate behind her station, the shock of Han’s abrupt departure too much to bare. 

_Ben_.

He did this. 

How could he have done this?

The Force was in a frenzy as dark and light raged against one another, the sensation of the battle within her only child irrepressible. 

Then, just as soon as she’d perceived his internal struggle, he was gone. 

Locked away again, shut off completely from Leia’s awareness. 

* * *

The Falcon entered the upper atmosphere with a pop, followed in quick succession by several more loud snaps as the fleet of x-wings made landfall. The Resistance spilled out onto the landing pad to greet the squadron of pilots who had successfully destroyed Starkiller Base. Cheers and embraces greeted every pilot as they disembarked their ships. 

Leia moved along with the throng, unable to truly share in the victory. 

No one knew about Han. Not yet. The battle had been too fierce, too important, for Leia to explain her brief halt in command. So she’d done what she always had, put one foot in front of the other and solved the problem at hand. Locking her emotions away behind a wall of durasteel until there was time to process them. 

A small cluster of medics had swarmed to the base of the Falcon’s exit ramp. Leia recognized the former stormtrooper’s limp form as they loaded him onto a hover stretcher. Poe was barking orders, a doctor shouting vitals as they ran off toward the medbay. Leia had half a mind to follow them, until she saw her. 

A girl, barely in the throws of adulthood, stood looking lost as they carted Finn away. 

Leia took a cautious step toward her, hardly allowing herself to breathe. 

This had to be her. The girl Finn and Han had told her so much about. 

Rey.

She burned in the Force like a brilliant little ball of lightning, but more than that, Leia felt her loneliness and her exhaustion and her _grief_. Leia took another step closer and then all at once realized what was drawing her in. 

She felt like Ben. 

Rey met Leia’s gaze, looking equally startled by the pull that was guiding the two of them together. 

Leia sifted through the chaos around them, slowly walking past pilots and first responders, people she’d known for years. Her mind brushed against every one of them, feeling their triumph and their sadness. Quickly though, she narrowed her attention to focus only on Rey. To get as much of a read as she could on this girl, this impossible girl. 

What she found broke her heart even more. 

Rey was in shock, trying desperately to reconcile the events that had led her here. She worried for her friend, she grieved for Han. She was shattered, drained down to her core, only delaying the inevitable collapse by sheer stubbornness of will. 

Leia knew a little something about that. 

They stopped in front of each other, eyes never wavering. Leia could barely begin to wrap her head around what the Force was offering her, but she made the decision anyway. After only a short moment, she closed the distance between them, pulling Rey firmly into her embrace. Jumping headfirst into this new certainty that the universe had brought her.

 _Here was another one_ , she thought to herself. _Another lonely child of the Force._

_I won’t let this one down._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy saturday! this chap is just a little explanation for a part of tfa that has always bothered me.. i am going to try to post a chapter every weekend with us finishing at 9 or 10 chapters. thanks for reading!!!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i hang out on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/takearisk__)


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